


Her

by Jouissance (restrained_ubiquity)



Series: OQ Prompt Party 2019 [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, OQ Prompt Party 2019, Underworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18991219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restrained_ubiquity/pseuds/Jouissance
Summary: Prompt 14 - Regina meets the real Marian





	Her

Her

  1. Regina meets real Marian



Underworld AU where Robin goes with Regina to Daniel’s grave (for all the reasons that should have happened in cannon)

 

She watches from the shadows, not daring to get any closer than she already has.  She shouldn’t be here. There’s a humming deep in her bones, a warning that she’s already crossed one barrier too many and this place, this graveyard that she’s tiptoeing through, could be the end of her, but she’s never been one to shy away from a challenge.  It’s why he fell in love with her; it’s why she’s here, hiding among the lost souls for a chance to see him again. She didn’t see  _ her  _ at first.  The way she was tucked under his arm, the way he held her so that his entire body was a shield of her existence.  Even their steps were in sync. So when her husband turns, bends to place a kiss on the lips of the woman who once ordered her death, her carefully crafted plan all but shatters.

 

He doesn’t see her.  She’s not sure he’d see a stampede of Ogres going by with the way he’s looking at the woman in his arms.  There’s so much love there, Marian has to look away. It’s too painful to see him look at another that way.  To look at  _ her _ that way.

 

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks her softly, arms soothing up and down her arms.

  
“No.  Thank you, but this is something I need to do on my own.  I need to know what happened after I...after I killed him,” Regina leans further into his hold.  Neither of them hear the scoff from the shadows as Marion inches closer. ‘Which him’, she wonders.  That monster has killed hundreds.

 

“You didn’t kill him, Regina.  From what you’ve told me, he should never have been brought back.  You set him free. It wasn’t your fault,” he holds her tighter, knowing well the memory that haunts her more frantic nightmares.

 

“The first time was.”

 

“That was your mother,” he says emphatically.

 

“Because of me.”

 

They’ve had this conversation many times.  He suspects they’ll have it many times more before it finally sinks in that her wretched mother’s villainy is not one of the things she has to atone for.  Regina bears her own sins, her own evil deeds leave her with more than sufficient penance without adding to the list.

 

“Go find your answers, love.  I’ll be here when you’re ready,” he kisses her softly before retreating to sit beneath the tree by the gates. Dried leaves rustle with the cold breeze that seems to constantly creep through this realm.  He watches her until she turns, weaving through the stones in search of her first love. His isn’t here. He’d sought her out two days prior, needed to know and was met with the sweet relief that her soul had moved on from this desolate place.  He hadn’t a clue what he would say to her. Apologies weren’t enough. Would she hate him? Would she understand that he had moved on after so much loneliness and grief? Would she approve of how he was raising Roland? Or, more aptly, how  _ they  _ were raising him?

 

She’d be furious, he knows and smiles to himself as he pictures the anger flashing in her eyes, the temper that she’d kept so well hidden from most of the world flaring out.  He misses those tantrums, that passion she had (even when they were often directed at him.) She’d think he was mad, under some spell that had caused him to fall in love with the Evil Queen.  She wouldn’t know. Her life had ended before Regina’s truly began.

 

...

  
  


“You’re not here,” Regina sinks to her knees, running her fingers along the smooth engraved letters of DANIEL COULTER.  

 

“He moved on from here decades ago,” a resentful voice cuts through her quiet relief.

 

“Who are you?” Regina quickly gets to her feet, eyes darting the landscape in search of the mob she’s been waiting to attack her from the moment they entered this realm.  She relaxes only slightly when she realizes there’s only one other here.

 

“You don’t remember?  Of course you don’t. I was just one of the many, MANY that you hunted and killed in the name of your precious revenge.”  The woman’s words hit harder than any weapon she could have wielded. 

 

“I’m sorry,” this woman tells her, this small, sad woman who was once the great and terrible evil queen with so much sincerity that the threats Marian intended to deliver die on her tongue.

 

“What happened to you?” she demands.  The villain isn’t dead, she can sense the heart beating frantically within her chest.  So why is she in this place? Why is she with Robin?

 

“I got everything I ever wanted,” Regina tells her with a defeated shrug, looking down at Daniel’s grave, at the rows and rows behind it.  How many are here at her hand?

 

“I don’t understand,” Marian steps closer, her fists balled at her side.  She should fear her magic; she should leave this place; she has no intention of leaving Robin to the fate of this monster.

 

“Neither did I.” the queen says without further explanation, then steps nearer, closing the small space between them. “You haven’t moved on,” she says matter-of-factly.  “Do you know what your unfinished business is? Is it me? Can I help you cross over?”

 

“You want to help me?” the absurdity of the offer has Marian laughing out loud.  The sincerity of Regina’s simple “Yes,” stuns her to silence. “I crossed over long ago.  I only came back because I found out that my husband--who is not dead--was fool enough to enter this realm.”

 

“Your husband?  You’re…” the nagging familiarity of the woman slaps Regina in the face.  Those eyes. Those are Roland’s eyes. How had she not seen in instantly.  “Oh Gods, you’re Marian.”

 

“Yes, I’m Marian.  Now, tell me what the hell you did to Robin!”

 

“Nothing.  He’s fine,” Regina assures her.  Robin had already come here. Told her the moment he’d gotten back that his wife wasn’t here, urged her to seek out Daniel and get her own closure.  But she’s here. Right here and Robin is... “He’s just at the gate. He’s waiting for me. He’s…”

 

“He’s in love with you,” Marian interrupts, having no patience for this act of shock and concern the queen is putting on.  “I saw the way he looked at you. I  _ know _ that look because that’s how he used to look at me.  So what did you do? Did you take his heart? Is he under your control?  Oh God, do you have my son?!”

 

“I’d never hurt Roland,” Regina fires back.  Let this woman think what she will about her, she deserves most, if not all, of it, but she draws the line at the assumption she’d harm a child.  “I’d die gladly before I let anything happen to that boy.”

 

“As if I would believe anything you say.  Answer my question, witch: what did you do to my husband?  Robin is the most honorable man I have ever known. He would never love  _ you _ .”

  
  


“He does,” both women turn at the sound of their husband’s voice.  “Marian,” he can barely give voice to her name. “How are you here?  I visited your gravestone...you’d moved on...you...How are you here?” he wraps her in his arms as Regina stands frozen in place.

 

“I heard a rumor that there was a group of living souls meddling in the Underworld and that the notorious Robin Hood was among them.  I assumed you had your reasons, but I wasn’t expecting one of them to be  _ her _ .”

 

“Can we talk?  Please, Marian.  There’s no magic, no influence.  I’m here of my own free will, my own heart,” Robin speaks to his first love, but his second feels each word deep in her soul.  Once again, he’s chosen  _ her _ .

 

“With  _ her _ ,” Marian’s voice cuts through him as she stares Regina down.  There’s so much betrayal there, so much she doesn’t understand.  “Alone,” she tells him, pulling him toward a bench on the opposite side of the cemetery.  She wants as much space between herself and the queen as possible.

  
  
  
  


“Robin, wait!” Regina hurries towards him as Marian pulls him away.  She shoves her phone into his hand. “I don’t know who I thought I was going to be able to call down here, but there’s pictures on it.  Of Roland,” she adds to ease the confusion on his face. He’s made leaps and bounds with Storybrooke’s technology, but her iphone is still a mystery to him.

 

“Thank you, love,” he kisses her temple, an easy, natural goodbye as he walks away from her and towards his wife.  

 

“I thought she was going to stop you,” Marian quips as he comes to sit at her side, glaring at Regina’s back until the other woman is out of sight.

 

“She wanted to give me something for you.”  His heart aches at the familiarity of the look that Marian gives him.  The tilt of her head, the roll of her eyes. It says ‘you’re an idiot’ or ‘you’ve done what now?’ or ‘there’s no way that I’d believe that’ or as he suspects now, a combination of the three.  He brushes it off as he always has and taps the screen. “Forgive me, I’m not great with these devices. Henry, Regina’s son, tries to teach me but I’m afraid I’m a poor student.”

 

“She has a son?” Marion asks, not hiding her surprise, as Robin taps and swipes at the small box in his hand. 

 

“He’s a great kid, you’d love him.  He’s a great big brother. Roland adores him.”

 

“I can’t picture the Evil Queen being capable of loving a child.”

 

“She’s not--” Robin stops, knowing he could defend Regina until he’s blue in the face.  His Marian would never be convinced by words alone. “There!” he shifts closer to her, putting the phone in her hands.  “You just move your finger over the glass to go to the next picture,” he explains the device operation, but Marian’s isn’t listening. She stares down into the big brown eyes of her baby boy.

 

“He’s so big,” she says with a wide smile on her face.  Robin leans over, swipes to the next picture and the next.     
  


“That’s Henry,” Robin tells her when she comes to the picture of the two boys hanging upside down from the tree in their backyard.  She swipes through more of the boys laughing, Roland covered in flour, Robin with frosting on his nose. Moments. Memories. Family.  

 

“He’s happy,” she looks at Robin with tears in her eyes, not needing confirmation.  Robin simply nods as Marian swipes to the last picture in Regina’s album. He’d taken that one himself and been quite proud of the accomplishment.  Regina had fallen asleep reading Roland a story. They were a tangle of limbs and brown curls in his small bed, a menagerie of stuffed animals surrounding them.

 

“The first time I met Regina,” Robin says softly, “actually met  _ her _ , not the Black Knights, not the Evil Queen.  She put herself between our son and a monster without a thought to her own life.  She’s changed. She’s my second chance, Marian. Roland’s as well. He loves her as he does you.”

 

“He doesn’t know me.  He’ll never know me.”

 

“He knows the best parts of you.  I tell him all the time. And so does she.  She doesn’t want to replace you. For either of us.  I don’t know how to explain it in anyway that makes sense or that won’t hurt you,” Robin drops his head to his hands.  How do you tell the woman you’ll always love that you’re soulmates with another? He hasn’t a clue.

 

She didn’t expect this when she came upon her husband with  _ her _ .  She’d been ready for a fight, ready to snap him out of whatever control he was under, sell her soul if need be to free him from her clutches.  She didn’t expect the anguish she sees in him now, the pain at trying to explain what she must only see as a betrayal. She didn't expect it to be real.  But when had Robin ever done what she’d expected?

 

She takes his hand, gently urging him to continue, “Tell me.  We promised long ago that we would never hold anything back from the other.  You can tell me.”

His eyes say it all, but he keeps his vow as his confession comes out.  “I was meant to love her.” Robin holds her gaze, watching her face soften as his words sink in.  “Gods, I was so relieved when I thought you weren’t here,” he laughs wetly into his hands. “I was so grateful that you’d moved on, that you were at peace and nothing was keeping you here, but I was terrified of trying to explain this to you.  I should’ve known you wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily.”

 

“Yes, you should have,” she smiles, bumping against him until he sits up to face her.  “I  _ wanted  _ you to move on.  I  _ wanted  _ you to love again because you’re so so good at it.  I  _ wanted  _ Roland to be safe and to laugh and to fall asleep in the arms of a mother who could love him for me.  I thought you’d find a nice farmgirl,” she laughs softly, shaking her head and wiping her tears, “but if you found a queen, then I guess I should be just as thankful.”

 

“Thank you,” he pulls her close, kisses her forehead and holds her there.

 

“I need to get back.  I’m not really supposed to be here.”  She can feel it. She’d been given a sort of day pass to straighten this mess out, but she’s gotten her answers and it’s time to move on.

 

“How  _ did _ you manage that?” he asks.  The rules of the Underworld seem fairly concrete, but leave it to his Marian to break them apart.

 

“A woman’s got to have her secrets, Robin.  Have I taught you nothing?” she asks with a mischievous smile.

 

“You’ve taught me more than you’ll ever know,” he says sincerely, walking with her toward the gates.  Regina’s there, pacing nervously just past the fence. 

 

“You’ll take care of them,” it’s not a question, but a shared understanding.  Woman to woman, mother to mother, wife to wife. Marian hands the phone back to Regina before hugging her husband one last time.  She nods at them both as she watches Robin’s hand slip easily into Regina’s. When she passes through the cemetery gates, it’s as if she was never there at all.

  
  


“Are you okay?” Regina asks breaking the deafening silence.

 

“I am,” Robin pulls her to his side, finding that he truly is okay in a way he didn’t know he wasn’t before.  “I’ll always love her, as you will Daniel, but Marian is my past. You are my present. And my future if you’ll have me.”

 

“Always,” she tells him with absolute certainty as they walk out of the cemetary hand in hand leaving the ghosts of their pasts behind.


End file.
